RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)


  • Quiet, Piggy: Reporters Aren’t Trump’s Subordinates

    Source: Garrison Center
    by Thomas L Knapp

    “What does it mean to be ‘insubordinate?’ Put simply, insubordination entails a person who’s lower on some ladder of authority defying the orders of someone who’s higher on that ladder. Trump clearly believes in the existence of such a ladder, upon which he enjoys higher ranking than, and authority over, mere mortals. Especially journalists. And most especially female journalists. … In reality, Trump’s only subordinates (with respect to his position as president of the United States) are employees of the federal government’s executive branch. Literally everyone else in the country is either his equal or his superior.” (11/20/25)

    https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20155

  • The UK and Canada Lead the West’s Descent into Digital Authoritarianism

    Source: Brownstone Institute
    by Sonia Elijah

    “‘Big Brother is watching you.’ These chilling words from George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, 1984, no longer read as fiction but are becoming a bleak reality in the UK and Canada — where digital dystopian measures are unravelling the fabric of freedom in two of the West’s oldest democracies. Under the guise of safety and innovation, the UK and Canada are deploying invasive tools that undermine privacy, stifle free expression, and foster a culture of self-censorship. Both nations are exporting their digital control frameworks through the Five Eyes alliance, a covert intelligence-sharing network uniting the UK, Canada, US, Australia, and New Zealand, established during the Cold War.” (11/20/25)

    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-uk-and-canada-lead-the-wests-descent-into-digital-authoritarianism/

  • Limited government: Myth or future fact?

    Source: The Price of Liberty
    by Nathan Barton

    “There were multiple times in history when men have attempted to create and sustain limited government. This is little more than tolerating something that is inherently intolerable. Many ways have been sought and tried to limit the power of government, to prevent the rise of the all-powerful state. However, humans are perversely ingenious and are inventive when it comes to enslaving their fellows. And in convincing the slaves that they are still free. … We propose that until and unless we change matters drastically, there is NO limited government in the future of the Fifty States. It is a myth that limited government exists now, and we will continue to see more and more power, more and more control, in the hands of monsters in human form.” (11/20/25)

    https://thepriceofliberty.org/2025/11/19/limited-government-myth-or-future-fact/

  • Why the Anti-Promethean Backlash?

    Source: Virginia’s Newsletter
    by Virginia Postrel

    “Roots of Progress Institute founder Jason Crawford recently hosted me at an Interintellect salon. Our topic was the relation between glamour and progress, inspired by my Works in Progress article. At one point Jason asked a provocative question: Why did the anti-Promethean backlash happen when it did? Earlier periods of technological and economic progress, he noted, had produced demands for more progress, not less. What was different about America circa 1970? In the WiP article, I point to a combination of complacency among those who’d grown up amid postwar plenty and dissatisfaction with technocratic overreach. But why the complacency? Why not a demand for even more? My article didn’t consider that question.” (11/20/25)

    https://vpostrel.substack.com/p/why-the-anti-promethean-backlash

  • To Make Luxury Affordable, Embrace Consumer Choice

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Mani Basharzad

    “What kind of goods and experiences comprise a ‘normal life?’ In 1900, Henry George thought millionaires lived abnormally because they had telephones in their bedrooms. Looking back, it’s remarkable how quickly the abnormal becomes ordinary. Today, even the poorest people — not only in rich countries but also in developing ones — carry a phone (which does much more than ring) in their pocket. That’s one of the miracles of the free market. French sociologist Gabriel Tarde noticed that forks and spoons were once luxuries reserved for the elite, but by his time had become universal. Ludwig von Mises drew inspiration from Tarde’s insight, calling it one of capitalism’s greatest virtues: the transformation of luxuries into necessities.” (11/20/25)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/embrace-consumer-choice/

  • Trump’s Most Original Idea Ever: An Unexpected Con to End Free Speech

    Source: TomDispatch
    by Mattea Kramer

    “Rooting out terrorism and antisemitism was the supposed reason that plainclothed ICE agents arrested doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, after she coauthored an op-ed calling on Tufts University to divest from companies with ties to Israel due to the killing and starvation of Palestinian civilians. There is an international movement to boycott, sanction, and divest from Israel, but in the United States, President Donald Trump is imperiling the freedom even to publicly discuss such ideas, which should, in effect, be considered a test case for his larger attack on free speech. So far, the test is going well for Trump. In what seems a long time ago, in 2024, the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, released a blueprint for what it called ‘a national strategy to combat antisemitism’ by addressing what it described as ‘America’s virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American pro-Palestinian movement’.” (11/20/25)

    https://tomdispatch.com/an-unexpected-con-to-end-free-speech/

  • There Is No Such Thing as Good Industrial Policy. But Republicans And Democrats Keep Trying.

    Source: Reason
    by Veronique de Rugy

    “American industry has been getting a lot of hands-on direction from Democrats and Republicans for quite some time now. Every few years, someone looks at the underwhelming results of this economic maneuvering and insists that real ‘industrial policy’ has never been tried. The truth is that the left’s call for a ‘mission-oriented’ state and the right’s yearning for a nationalist industrial revival may sound different, but they share the same conceit: that their own intentions can finally succeed where decades of intervention have failed.” (11/20/25)

    https://reason.com/2025/11/20/there-is-no-such-thing-as-good-industrial-policy-but-republicans-and-democrats-keep-trying/

  • The People of Ecuador Are Right: US Force Won’t Stop Narco-Traffickers

    Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
    by John Feffer

    “Ecuador, once one of the most peaceful countries in Latin America, is now one of its most dangerous. The murder rate in 2020 was 7.7 homicides per 100,000 people. That was roughly comparable to the United States where it was 6.4 that year. In nearby Brazil, on the other hand, it was 22.3. By 2023, Ecuador’s homicide rate had leapfrogged over its neighbors to an astounding 46 per 100,000. In a mere three years, the number of murders had increased six-fold. The reason: narco-traffickers. Ecuador had become a convenient transshipment hub, and various gangs were warring over territory, particularly in coastal cities. In 2023, in a presidential election that featured the assassination of one of the candidates, Ecuadorians voted in Daniel Noboa, an undistinguished but telegenic conservative politician who promised an iron-fist approach to fighting drug kingpins. His tactics boiled down to unleashing the military to attack specific gangs.” (11/20/25)

    https://fpif.org/us-military-is-no-answer-to-narcotraffickers/

  • Broaden the base, lower the (improper payment) rates

    Source: Niskanen Center
    by Will Raderman

    “After years of deliberation, a bipartisan consensus is coalescing on the need for Congress to help states protect their Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs against improper payments and outright fraud, which cost the federal government, states, and taxpayers an estimated $135 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic alone. … An effective reform package would focus on fixing how UI administration is funded and establish new program guardrails. Congress can ensure that state UI agencies make use of more federal revenue raised specifically for program administration while offsetting past administrative funding lost to inflation.” (11/20/25)

    https://www.niskanencenter.org/broaden-the-base-lower-the-improper-payment-rates

  • NIH Announces New Pandemic Playbook

    Source: Independent Institute
    by K Lloyd Billingsley

    “But remember the ‘failed’ playbook quarterbacked by Dr. Anthony Fauci.” (11/20/25)

    https://www.independent.org/article/2025/11/20/nih-announces-new-pandemic-playbook/

  • Stacey Plaskett’s Nightmare Week Continues

    Source: Racket News
    by Greg Collard

    “Memo to members of Congress: never kick an Internet hornet’s nest, unless you’re a master bull artist.” (11/20/25)

    https://www.racket.news/p/stacey-plasketts-nightmare-week-continues

  • Even liberal scientists agree: Time to stop the madness of medical intervention for gender-confused kids

    Source: New York Post
    by Kirsten Fleming

    “Sensible people already know that medicalizing children in the name of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ is not only experimental, it’s barbaric. Now, a peer-reviewed study, commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services, reports that the evidence used to back such practices as hormone therapy for kids is flimsy at best. There just isn’t enough known to justify such drastic medical interventions for young people. Back in January, President Trump slammed the brakes on the medicalization of minors with his Executive Order 14187, restricting ‘the maiming and sterilization’ of patients under 19, and ordered a study to look at the standards of care. First released in May, the report has been affirmed by 10 researchers and groups who found no fault with the findings — and advised that doctors treating minors with gender dysphoria should focus on psychotherapy until more is known about medical interventions.” (11/19/25)

    https://nypost.com/2025/11/19/opinion/stop-the-madness-of-medical-intervention-for-gender-confused-kids/

  • Eugenics and Libertarianism

    Source: David Friedman’s Substack
    by David Friedman

    “The idea of eugenics originated with Galton, who proposed positive eugenics, policies to encourage the reproduction of the able. The idea of negative eugenics, preventing the reproduction of the unfit, was taken up by the British left, with supporters including Shaw, Wells, Keynes, Laski and the Webbs, and spread across the political spectrum; Winston Churchill was one of many enthusiastic supporters. The result was an attempt, in 1912, to enact compulsory eugenics into law. It was successfully opposed by Josiah Wedgewood, whom Ridley describes as a radical libertarian. His central argument was not that it was bad science but that it was a striking violation of individual liberty.” (11/20/25)

    https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/eugenics-and-libertarianism-ce8

  • Hyperproductivity: The Next Stage of AI?

    Source: Second Thoughts
    by Steve Newman

    “Recently, I’ve been hearing of a new phenomenon: teams reportedly using agentic AI tools to ‘enter takeoff’ – achieving astounding feats of productivity that escalate each week, with no limit in sight. … The classic scenario for AI ascending to superintelligence involves ‘recursive self-improvement,’ where an AI builds a smarter AI, which builds an even smarter AI, and so on. These stories of teams entering takeoff are not quite that, because there is still a human in the loop, but they have a similar flavor. If the singularity ever arrives, the early stages might look just like this.” (11/20/25)

    https://secondthoughts.ai/p/hyperproductivity

  • Time for Burden Shifting in Europe

    Source: Law & Liberty
    by Doug Bandow

    “Before heading for a special London summit earlier this year, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk noted ‘a paradox’ involving the continent’s security relationship with America: ‘500 million Europeans [are asking] 300 million Americans to protect them from 140 million Russians.’ His numbers were slightly off — it’s more like 600 million Europeans and 340 million Americans — but his conclusion, that Europe ‘must take greater responsibility for the continent’s security,’ was sound. The time is well past for burden-sharing, however. It is time for burden-shifting. NATO was created 76 years ago. Yet the Europeans remain seemingly haplessly and helplessly dependent on the US for their defense.” (11/20/25)

    https://lawliberty.org/time-for-burden-shifting-in-europe/

  • Telemedicine could be taken away from us if Congress doesn’t act soon

    Source: The Hill
    by Ryan Nadelson

    “For nearly five years, pandemic-era waivers allowed patients to receive telehealth visits from home under Medicare and most commercial plans. That flexibility ended on September 30, 2025 when Congress failed to renew permanent parity. Beginning October 1, a patient’s home no longer counted as an eligible originating site for most non behavioral medical visits, with only a narrow set of mental health exceptions. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not ban telemedicine — it simply stopped paying for it. In modern health care, that is the same result. Regional insurance plans followed, affecting more than thirty million Medicare beneficiaries who used telehealth last year. They all risk losing access again in a matter of weeks.” (11/20/25)

    https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5609210-telemedicine-is-quietly-being-undone-and-its-a-big-mistake/

  • Corporate Media Parrot Dubious Drug Claims That Justify War on Venezuela

    Source: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
    by Ricardo Vaz

    “Since August, the US has been amassing military assets in the Caribbean. Warships, bombers, and thousands of troops have been joined by the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, in the largest regional deployment in decades. Extrajudicial strikes against small vessels, which United Nations experts have decried as violations of international law, have killed at least 80 civilians (CNN, 11/14/25). Many foreign policy analysts believe that regime change in Venezuela is the ultimate goal (Al Jazeera, 10/24/25; Left Chapter, 10/21/25), but the Trump administration instead claims it is fighting ‘narcoterrorism’, accusing Caracas of flooding the US with drugs via the Cartel of the Suns and Tren de Aragua, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Over the years, Western media have endorsed Washington’s Venezuela regime-change efforts at every turn, from cheerleading coup attempts to whitewashing deadly sanctions.” (11/20/25)

    https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-parrot-dubious-drug-claims-that-justify-war-on-venezuela/

  • Young Kim and Ken Calvert should stop excusing Trump’s import taxes

    Source: Orange County Register
    by Sal Rodriguez

    “[T]he negative impacts of Trump’s global tariffs are already being felt by American businesses and consumers. The Budget Lab at Yale University projects the net impact will be a slowing of the U.S. GDP for years to come and net losses to the average household of about $1,300. In just the first few months of the Trump presidency, Californians coughed up over $11 billion in tariff payments as a result of Trump’s decrees. That’s real money taken out of the hands of California businesses and consumers. So it struck me as odd, the other day, when I saw GOP Rep. Young Kim post on X, ‘California’s gotten too expensive for small businesses to take off. I fought to make President Trump’s pro-growth tax cuts permanent — so local job creators can keep more of what they earn.'” (11/20/25)

    https://archive.is/APpYt

  • What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing?

    Source: Freedom and Flourishing
    by Winton Bates

    “Some readers will come to this series with the prior belief that political entrepreneurship has a negative impact on freedom and flourishing. Those of us who believe that people tend to flourish most fully when governments refrain from interfering with their lives may hold that belief. We certainly have good reasons to be skeptical about the impact of political entrepreneurs on human flourishing. Nevertheless, if we are serious about promoting libertarian ideals, we cannot avoid considering the possibility that political entrepreneurship might have a role to play in getting us from where we are now – or where we seem to be heading – to a political and legal order that is more conducive to human flourishing.” (11/20/25)

    https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2025/11/what-impact-does-political.html

  • The Vibecession Deepens

    Source: Paul Krugman
    by Paul Krugman

    “I noted last week that the Biden era vibecession — people feeling bad about an economy that looked good by standard measures — has persisted under Trump. In fact, public perceptions of the economy appear to be plumbing new depths. Honestly, I’m surprised. One factor in poor economic sentiment under Biden was partisanship. People’s reported perception of the economy is strongly affected by whether their preferred party is in power …. This is true for both parties, but historically Republicans have tended to cheer harder and boo louder than Democrats. So other things equal we would have expected average sentiment to improve under Trump II. Now, things aren’t equal. Objectively, the economy is worse in important ways than it was a year ago. Still, the extent of the plunge in perceptions is remarkable.” (11/20/25)

    https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-vibecession-deepens

  • Separating Some Terms

    Source: EconLog
    by Kevin Corcoran

    “Political views are often misleadingly discussed as though they span a single left/right spectrum. I want to suggest that a similar mistake gets made when thinking about economic systems and policies. As a corrective, consider that economic systems can be understood along more than one axis or spectrum – and these different axes are often conflated with each other. Here I propose four axes for evaluating a country’s economic system. Each axis should be thought of as a sliding scale, rather than a binary switch. It’s not a matter of if a country is entirely on this or that side, it’s a question of what side the balance tends toward.” (11/20/25)

    https://www.econlib.org/econlog/separating-some-terms/

  • The New Medievals

    Source: Quillette
    by Claire Lehmann

    Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, podcaster and influencer Candace Owens has floated a succession of conspiracy theories implicating everyone in the murder, from the Israeli government to Kirk’s own organisation, Turning Point USA. This week, her speculation reached its apogee when she suggested that Donald Trump himself was involved. In a recent broadcast, Owens linked the commemorations of Kirk’s death to a supposed plot, remarking that ‘when they give you a holiday and a boulevard … they definitely killed you.’ Owens’[s] wild theorising isn’t an anomaly; it’s part of something older and darker. There’s a distinctly medieval quality to much of the conspiratorial right—a world animated by unseen cabals, moral corruption, and divine punishment disguised as politics.” (11/20/25)

    https://quillette.com/2025/11/20/the-new-medievals-candace-owens-charlie-kirk-conspiracy/